Honing In on Metals

A very poor durable jobs number is being overlooked as consumer confidence and Richmond Fed numbers come in much better than expected. I'm not sure the dip buyers even needed an excuse to buy the weakness, but the sentiment number didn't hurt.

The indices are mildly green and breadth is a bit better than even, which is keeping the bears at bay so far. The tendency of the market lately has been for very strong underlying support but not much upside traction. If a support level, like today's early low, does not hold then we better be quick to be more defensive. But so far there has been no reason at all to bet against those dip buyers.

We have silver and gold leading in the early going and I'm focusing on silver miners once again. First Majestic Silver (AG), which performed very well after I mentioned it last week, is setting up and I'm looking for an attempt to break through the $21 level. I'm watching a few other miners like New Gold (NGD), but they aren't active enough yet.

I don't have much else on my radar and so many stocks need a rest now. The small oils, for example, have been very hot but many need to reset now as they have priced in the big recent run in crude. I'm going to focus on precious metals for now and see what else develops.